"You have to search the woods if you want to make interesting, complete finds." Christoph`s words came back to me as I pulled into the parking area on the edge of the forest I had earmarked for a search I had first wandered around this particular wood about six months previously on a cold wintry day in February.

What had struck me initially on that first outing was the unusual lie of the land. The wood itself was about 40 kms from Munich on the edge of the flood plain, crowning a long ridge which had (on sunny days) a view through to the Alps.

The wood showed the effects of glaciations, the ground inside was a tumble of lateral moraines, debris left over from the last ice age when huge glaciers slowly ground their unstoppable paths across the landscape. The land on which this pine wood now stood was an undulating mass of lumps and bumps unsuited for agriculture unlike the farmland adjoining.

The worth of such a valuable piece of land had not been overlooked in times past, with clear views both up and down the wide valley in both directions anyone living here would have had advance warning of any traffic moving along the main roman arterial road over the Alps 2 kms distant. A quick check of the large scale map showed a ruined fortification abandoned sometime in the 12 century, just a small one like scores of others dotted around the Bavarian countryside, so noting its position in relation to mine I began my search. On farmland I usually use a Whites XLT but I have yet to find a program that I am happy with on woodland so it was out with the Fisher 1266, my old workhorse. (If anyone out there has a suitable program for woodland searching I would be grateful for any suggestions hints, tips programs or otherwise.)

The undergrowth amongst the young fir trees was easy going as the foresters had been out thinning back the usual saplings and bracken, unfortunately this meant the ground in-between was fairly well littered with cuttings making it difficult to get the searchead down so I headed deeper into the wood where the more mature trees stood. The ground was a spongy turf often found under larger mature firs and being further away from the main road it was also cleaner of junk.

I started to search a line parallel to the road and soon the first positive signals started to emerge. Woodland can be a fairly frustrating place to search, junky on the perimeter and deathly quiet inside. The real knack is to dig every large positive iron signal you get, this is something that I would never ordinarily do when searching farmland, but woodland is a completely different kettle of fish. High iron concentration usually indicates areas of past activity and as you don't have visible clues such as pottery shards and soil coloration to guide you as you have on farmland keeping an ear cocked for an increase in iron signals is a fairly good way to identify hotspots. This is particularly important if the woodland being searched is a modern plantation as often much ground leveling has taken place.

I had rarely ever searched woodland back home in the UK preferring to hit the foreshore and beaches of my hometown South end on Sea when farmland was unavailable and so never developed a technique for searching them. Bavaria is different, no beaches but woodland in abundance so woodlands became my fallback reserve search area and now occupies equal status (in my eyes) with farmland sites.

I worked my way along the side of a dried out drainage ditch that extended into the wood this produced a couple of copper Reichpfennigs from the late 1800s, the German equivalent of Victorian coinage and fairly common finds. A large positive signal in the side of the bank flanking the ditch revealed an empty magazine for a Mauser K98 carbine circa WW2. Spent cartridges littered the foot of the bank the top of which proved to have an unobscured view of the nearby road in short it was an obvious spot to snipe at any approaching enemy.

Further signals in this area produced several German alloy tunic buttons of the same period and a some alloy Third Reich pennies in the usual bad condition. I had found a German soldiers Piquet, I could picture in my minds eye an exhausted soldier in field grey waiting in this lonely forest as the English and American war machine rolled inexorably towards Berlin in the closing stages of the war. The area in front of the drainage ditch dipped gradually down to the road and as l made my way parallel to it I could make out the remains of a few dugouts or foxholes scattered off to the right more spent cases came from the areas around these but nothing to indicate more than a minor skirmish.

On the crest of a moraine a deep iron signal pulled me out of my reverie and as I punched my way through the pebbly clay rubble I thought I'd found a small knife, on closer inspection the knife became an arrowhead, of a long thin double-edged diamond shape, sadly corrosion had got the better of it but still a nice find nonetheless. I was pleased I had managed to throw off the ghosts of WW2.

The wood now opened out into a small clearing as I crested the rise and a small dew pond sat at the center shallow and almost dry, an ideal place conceal things I thought to myself as I skirted around the edge. A large signal proved to be a complete bronze crotal bell with a nice patina this coming out from the middle of a small depression, probably also a pond in wetter weather.

More dugouts were evident as I swung back downhill moving in the direction of the road and as I crossed an old logging track another deep iron signal stopped me.

Digging it out up came a thin iron pin decorated on the thicker blunt end with a series of round terminals and an unusual barley sugar twist along the shaft but unfortunately also suffering from the effects of corrosion.

On the other side of the track I started back to where I had left my car about 500 meters distant as the light was already fading when a massive iron signal rang through the headphones, parting the mossy turf revealed the rotting remains of pine tree stump collapsing in on itself and brushing this aside another sweep had the signal coming from the base of this dead tree. I carefully cleared the wood back and there on the surface I saw the outline of the classic German officer's sidearm a P 09 Luger 9mm parabellum. The pistol was a mass of rust, the thin wooden hand grips long since disintegrated giving a view into butt where the magazine slid home, but it was otherwise complete and empty. Careful restoration proved the it to be an S/42 P09 Luger made under license from the Mauser company for the Wehrmacht in 1936.

My next visit to this woodland was about a week later I left work early I had it in mind to search through from the rear of the wood so parking the car I struck out into another section of the wood. This area was also in stark contrast to the surrounding farmland as once inside the ground rose in a long ridge at right angles to the valley like a wrinkle in some huge rug and on either side of the ridge the ground rose and fell unevenly.

This part of the wood was old and not so well cared for as in the other sections I had walked through, the trees were a mixture of old fir and beech with many trees in various stages of decay and leaning at crazy angles some supported only by their neighbors, so some care was needed. (I was in woodland once before and was taking a ciggie break with a friend when with a terrific splintering crack a tree in an area we had just been searching came crashing down ,cue a few choice words, it wasn't funny.)

I had only about an hour to spare so I made a quick circular search, I had been searching for about ten minutes and had only the usual grotty pfennigs in my pocket when I had a mass of positive signals clustered around the base of a dead fir tree. Removing the surface turf exposed a cardboard box 10cms x 10cms square packed with K98 Mauser carbine cartridges still intact after more than 50 years in the ground, next to these lay a number of 9mm parabellum rounds loose and a small quantity of ammunition of various calibers. These I removed and disposed of later. I rounded the back of the tree and immediately got an earsplitting iron signal and parting the forest turf revealed the outline of another Luger. On inspection this one was in a slightly better state, the ground was not as waterlogged and so the corrosion was superficial.

Subsequent searches of the surrounding area produced a few items of military equipment including an empty magazine for the same pistol, an elevation gun sight and an empty bayonet scabbard.

I must say I was absolutely chuffed to find two similar guns in one month as they are not common finds here in our locality and although I prefer to make finds from earlier periods they were nevertheless very welcome additions to my collection.

During restoration it became obvious that this pistol differed in minor details to the first I'd uncovered and it proved to be a P08 Luger manufactured by the Mauser Company in 1915 and carried the Mauser Company monogram engraved on the top of the knee link breech.

The most well known of German personal side arms, the Luger P08 enjoyed a position as somewhat of an erstwhile status symbol amongst service personnel, (this status being somewhat colored with nostalgia and ill deserved as contemporary reports show the P08 as having a reputation for regularly discharging in the holster, the complex nature of its action an susceptibility to powder and dirt ingress also meant it was difficult to maintain in the field, misfiring and jamming were common occurrences.) even after being superceded by the more modern Walther P38. The Walther being cheaper to produce and more reliable in the field.

The Luger 08 and 09 were semi automatic firearms, (the action of firing a shot ejected the spent cartridge case, forced another round up into the firing chamber and cocking the weapon for the next shot) and both had eight shot capacity magazines that slid home into the elongated butt, part of the hallmark of this design.

The more antiquated Luger the patent of which dates to end of the last century although a masterpiece of German engineering required very accurate machining tolerances necessary because of the unique breech arrangement. This absorbed many valuable man hours for its manufacture at a time when the German arms industry could ill afford them and so its replacement was inevitable.

It needs to be stressed that safety is paramount when undertaking this type of searching no one should take any chances with any type of live ordnance however small, with disposal being carried out by the proper authorities.

RESTORATION.

The two pistols as found were both heavily rusted, the corrosion being more severe on the side in contact with the forest floor. The wooden handgrips on both firearms had long since decayed as they were found next to two dead trees, the ground being fairly damp. On first examination I let both pistols stabilize for 24 hours at room temperature and afterwards gave them a rinse in water to remove any loose material, and the surfaces were scrubbed with a tough wire brush, this helped to remove the last traces of the rotten hand grips still remaining.

Next I laid both guns in a strong solution of Aetznatron in a plastic container, a treatment that requires a well ventilated room rubber gloves and eye protection as this chemical is very corrosive not only to iron oxide but also is very aggressive to organic material too.

The solution is one part Aetznatron to two parts water, the chemical being added to the water and not vice versa as heat is produced in the process (do not inhale the fumes produced). The solution is used normally as a drain unblocker or to unfreeze water pipes and is available from most chemists. I left both pistols in the solution for three days and then carefully removed and rinsed them under running water and gave them further wire brush treatment and the obvious rust blisters were tapped off with a light tack hammer. This process was repeated for the next four weeks until all of the surface corrosion was removed and the surface was down to bare metal.

The next stage once the last of the iron oxide had been removed was to neutralize the first chemical. This I did using a solution of Natron, mixed in the same quantities as the first solution, one part Natron to two parts water. I left both guns lay for a further four weeks in a bath of this chemical to stabilize and then l boiled them in water for twenty minutes to allow any residual oxides and salts to bubble off.

After the neutralization they were both introduced into a paraffin degreasing agent, (I use a regular commercial car engine degreaser) and I rinsed them every other day under running water until no further dirt or loose material dropped out.

Finally I soaked each pistol in a bath of light gun oil and to fitted replacement original handgrips. The blue/black finish was obtained using thinned down permanent marker pen ink. The overall results although very labor intensive I think speak for themselves as can be seen from the photographs. This restoration technique can be used on any substantial iron finds.

My friends and I have since been back to these particular woods on a number of occasions and they are proving to be interesting with finds being made from many different periods proving my friend Christoph`s sound advice that woodland does hold many a secret and more than a few interesting finds lay waiting to be discovered if you are prepared to dig those iron signals.